Question: The manager at Vanessa's Furniture Store is trying to figure out how much to charge for a book shelf that just arrived. If the book shelf was bought at a wholesale price of $159.00 and Vanessa's Furniture Store marks up all furniture by 80%, at what price should the manager sell the book shelf?
In order to find the retail price, we must first find the amount of markup. Remember that a markup rate is a percentage of the wholesale price that a store adds to get a selling or retail price. With this knowledge, we can figure out the following equation: markup rate $\times$ wholesale price $=$ amount of markup Since the markup rate is a percentage, we have to convert it into a decimal first. Percent means "out of one hundred," so $80\%$ is equivalent to $\frac{80}{100}$ which is also equal to $80 \div 100$ $80 \div 100 = 0.80$ Now you have all the information you need to find the amount of markup! $0.80$ $\times$ $$159.00$ $=$ $$127.20$ Since the markup rate is a percentage of the wholesale price that is added to get the retail price, we can find the retail price with the following equation: amount of markup $+$ wholesale price $=$ retail price $$127.20$ $+$ $$159.00$ $=$ $$286.20$ The retail price of the book shelf should be $$286.20$.